“Transparency?” You MUST Be Kidding!

President Obama has repeatedly hailed himself for presiding over “the most transparent administration ever.” At the same time, he has waged a sustained and unprecedented war on whistleblowers, press freedoms and the basic mechanisms of the newsgathering process.

But it is the administration of Barack Obama that has prosecuted more accused leakers under “espionage” statutes than all prior administrations combined — in fact, double the number of all prior such prosecutions.

This is the vital context in which the Obama Justice Department’s conduct regarding both The A.P. and Fox News’ James Rosen must be understood. Time and again, this administration has proven that it has little other than contempt for time-honored protections to safeguard whistleblowing and transparency.

While President Obama aggressively protected Bush officials from any liability for the creation of a worldwide torture regime, his Justice Department prosecuted and imprisoned a former C.I.A. official, John Kiriakou, who publicly condemned torture. It has convened a grand jury to criminally investigate WikiLeaks for doing what media outlets do every day — publishing classified information that it received a from a government source — and to do so, embraced a theory of criminality pioneered by Richard Nixon when he sought to prosecute a New York Times reporter for publishing the Pentagon Papers…

James R. Granger, Jr.

earned degrees in economics and finance, has a lifelong interest in history and science, and has authored books on Megahistory, the origins and migrations of the races of humanity. This site was established to provide a vehicle for the dissemination of information important to progressive people.